Behind Closed Doors
by Allie Bird
Summary: By the time you read this letter, I’ll be gone. I don’t mean gone, gone. I mean that I’m leaving Seattle. I hope we can be together someday, Freddie. But not now.


**A/N- Hey, I'm back! Here's my second ever fanfic. It's a letter from Sam to Freddie, and it's written when they're about eighteen. Hope you enjoy!**

**Disclaimer: I don't own iCarly.**

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Dear Freddie,

I don't really know how to start this letter. But I'm sure you understand, since you know that I've gotten a D in English for six consecutive years. In all seriousness though, I guess this letter is to… to tell you some things that I can't bear to tell you in person.

We met before Carly came around, when we were in third grade, I think. We weren't instantly best friends, but we knew each other and were "school friends." I tolerated you, to say the least. Then Carly moved in next to you and all three of us became friends. Those were the great years, Freddie. The three of us going through junior high… not a care in the world. But that was all an illusion. I had plenty to care about, I just didn't know.

You and Carly know virtually nothing about my family. I joke about them all the time, of course. I say half my family's in jail. That's a lie. I have no family, except for my mom. I never have. And there _is_ a reason. My mother's family threw her out. They threw her out, Freddie; they just dumped her on the streets when she was just seventeen years old. And I'll talk more about that later. But up until then, my mother had a perfect life. They lived in a huge home, had tons of money, and the best of everything. My grandpa invented heated hair curlers; did you know that? I didn't. I knew nothing about them. My mother never spoke of them. And they aren't my family now, then or ever. Not after what they did to my mom.

So my mother lived on the streets for a period of time. Sometime, somehow or another, she managed to scrape up enough money to buy the craphole of an apartment where we still live. You've never been inside of it, but let me tell you, it's not pretty. There are rats running everywhere and cockroaches in the shower… no, I'm kidding. Sort of. But I'm sure my mother could've earned enough money to buy a real house at some point, but she doesn't really like… working. I don't think she ever got over the day she left home. Imagine… imagine your own flesh and blood kicking you out of your own home. Just imagine it, Freddie. My poor mother. She's always been… eccentric, but she's not crazy. She's heartbroken. And it can't be fixed.

I'm sure you've already figured out by now why she was kicked out. But in case you haven't, I'll say it anyway.

She was pregnant. With me.

She never told me anything about my father. I never asked. I'd thought about him, sure, but I'd never been able to imagine him. He was like a shadow… I could see an outline, but never any details. Until about three months ago.

I needed some socks or something stupid like that, so I went into my mother's room. I rummaged in her sock drawer and I found a picture. It was a picture of her and a boy, Freddie. I knew it was my dad, I just knew it.

God. I'm crying now. How stupid is that? Sam Puckett does _not_ cry. Ever.

…

I think I have his eyes.

…

I looked at the back of the photo. It said "July, 1993." That was the year before I was born. I hope you see that picture someday. It's beautiful, especially my mother. Her golden hair is loose and rippling down her shoulders and she's wearing denim cutoffs and a baggy white shirt. Her head is cocked slightly to the side, and the expression on her face is so peaceful and so blissfully happy. It makes my heart ache just to see it. That person is not the person I know. And yet, that's the person I so desperately _want_ to know.

My mother was lounging on the couch in an orange bikini eating chocolate ice cream straight out of the tub when I decided to confront her. I sat down next to her, clutching the photo. "Mom," I said. "Who is my father?" I saw her eyes cloud over, like she was remembering. I saw a wave of sadness pass over her face, but it was gone in an instant.

"Why do you want to know who your father is?" she snapped. "He's never met you, you've never met him."

I took a deep breath. "Maybe I want to meet him," I said.

"You don't," she retorted. "I won't allow it." She got up, attempting to end the conversation.

"Just tell me who he is," I said to her, almost pleading.

Now I'm not going to get into that "it feels like a part of me is missing" _Mamma Mia_-type crap, but, God. She's kept this from me for nearly eighteen years. Not once have I asked, not once have I really, truly, deeply thought about the missing half of my family tree, but there are some things a person should just _know_. Not until then did it cross my mind that my own mother had purposely tried to keep part of my life hidden from me. God, Freddie. It _hurt. _It hurt to know that my mom would try to keep something that big hidden from me.

She kept walking towards her bedroom, away from me, and away from the past. She didn't answer me. Here I was, pleading with her, almost all of my walls broken down, and she was just _ignoring_ me? Something in me snapped. "_Why_?" I screamed at her. "_Why_, Mom? Why are you keeping this from me?"

She ignored me. She shut the door to her bedroom and I heard the lock click into place.

It's the worst feeling in the world when a parent abandons you, Freddie. She didn't just shut the door to her bedroom. She shut the door that connected her to my life. And that door can't be opened up again.

You remember what happens next. You remember how you found me crumpled up outside the door to Carly's apartment, my face red and blotchy, sobs racking my body. I remember the shock on your face. But you took me into your arms, no questions asked. I remember how good you smelled. But as I was sobbing into your shoulder, I had the strangest feeling come over me. It was like I didn't know who I was crying for: my lost mother, my unknown father, or maybe just me.

I'm sure you remember, Freddie. That was a night of firsts for us. It was the first time we'd really seen each other, as more than just frenemies who shouted a lot. It was also our first meaningful kiss. And it was also our first time. Everything just happened so quickly and suddenly. I got lost in you, forgetting about everything. We were in our own little dream world. But it couldn't last, and it didn't. The funny thing is this, though, Fredward: I don't regret it. Not one bit.

So I'll bet you're asking yourself, "Was this letter just so Sam could tell me about her screwed up family?" The answer, Freddie, is no. There's something else I need to tell you.

I'm pregnant.

When I told my mom, she just looked at me, that shadow passing over her face again. She looked years older than she really is. She didn't say anything for a full minute. And then, just as I was about to get up and leave, she spoke. "His name was Justin," she said. And then she told me everything.

My father's name was Justin Kulricko. He had bright blue eyes and shaggy dark hair, and he was long and lanky. My mother met him when she was seventeen and he was nineteen, during summer vacation at their beach house. She was working at the local diner, and he was a regular customer there. Justin charmed her immediately, and swept her off her feet. By late June, they were a couple. My mother told me he was wild and spontaneous, with a type of appealing danger to him. He had a motorcycle, she said. Her parents hated him because of it. They didn't approve of their proper seventeen year old daughter dating such a crazy boy. But they were young and in love, and the rules didn't matter.

But then it turned colder, and my mother went back home to Chicago where she and her family lived at the time. She never saw Justin again. He broke her heart, my mother said.

I asked her if I could meet him. She shook her head no. "Why?" I asked, anger bubbling up in my stomach. She looked at me, her eyes hollow. And then she got up and went to her bedroom. When she came out, she was holding a newspaper article.

Shit. I'm crying again.

It was an obituary, Freddie. My father's obituary. "He died of a drug overdose," my mother said quietly. "He was an addict, Sammie."

Words can't really explain how I felt right then. I don't even know how I felt.

My father left me before he knew me, he left me just like he left my mother.

I didn't cry then. I didn't really know what to think.

…

By the time you read this letter, I'll be gone. I don't mean _gone_, gone. I mean that I'm leaving Seattle. I'm leaving with the money I have and I'm starting a new life with our baby. I'm not going to tell you where I'm going, because I don't want you to follow me.

I don't want my child to be like me, Freddie. I'm going to be there for my child, in ways that my mother wasn't with me. And I hope that someday, my baby's father will be there for it too. But not now.

I love you, Freddie. I always will. And I hope that you can love me too, someday, somehow. I want us to be a family. I think this is the only way that that'll be possible. I have to be alone for a while. So don't forget me.

Oh, and Freddie?

I'm sorry.

Love,

Sam

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**A/N Hope you liked it! Review, review, review! They make me smile! **

**~Alison **


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